Terrain Masking? What is it?
Terrain Masking Explained video!
Let's have a quick look at terrain masking.
What: Terrain masking is nothing more than hiding behind terrain or the curve of the earth to avoid detection by radar or other line of sight sensors.
Where: Terrain masking can be used anywhere even the ocean using the curve of the Earth. However, it's more commonly used in areas with deep terrain features like The Crimean Mountains.
Why: So, you can strike a target undetected or with so little warning the enemy has no time to engage your missile.
Here we can see an exaggerated example of terrain masking. Red areas = masked. Source: WIkimedia
I drew a some hypothetical flight profiles on this Cambridge Pixel plot of the 92N6 radar at the Feodosia S-400 site. You can see The Crimean Mountains block a considerable amount of low level coverage for this site.
Unfortunately it's not this simple in practice! Russia has air defense assets all over Crimea, and they constantly rotate them like a big shell game! As a flight planner you must have a constant threat picture in order to plan the best profile with the highest chance of getting through. Combine terrain masking with air launched decoys, and planning gets very complex in a hurry!
You can see the need for large amounts of satellite imagery to keep up with the shell game! The average image cost around $30 and some come up empty wich makes the average published image cost in the region of $75. If you would like to support the hunt here are my links! Thank you all so much for the generous support in 2023! Looking forward to a productive 2024!
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